Sunday, March 21

We're still drying off from today's Grapefruit League game at City of Palms Park. The game was called in the 8th after the skies opened up with rain, wind and lightning. The game ended with the Sox being on the wrong end of a 10-7 score, but there was a lot of action behind the numbers. Quickly going around the horn, here are some takeaways we had:

-With good seats just off set behind home plate, Joe Murph was finally able to see the ball off the bat....the past few days have been full of Joe ducking every time he hears the ball hit the bat in fear of a foul ball pinging him off the dome....he's amazingly blind.

-Jon Lester went 5 strong innings, striking out 7 while letting up 3 runs to a split squad from Houston. He featured a good mix of off-speed pitches and an overpowering fastball that mostly hit the spots. We're in agreement that he looks more than ready to start the season at this point.

-Marco Scutaro is just as short as Dusty. They're both listed at 5'9", but there is no way either is taller than 5'6".

-Boston's top of the order is on fire. Ellsbury showed off his power, speed and defense by going 3 for 4 at the plate and making a few nice plays in his new home in left field. Pedey followed him every time with a hit of his own...including turning on a fastball to hit a bomb over the left field fence. He can hit that pitch.

-Mike Cameron may strike out 180 times this year, but he'll hit for some power as well. He continues to swing a heavy stick at the plate. He belted a tater and hit a deep gap ball today. A productive Mike Cameron at the bottom of the order would really help to balance a top heavy lineup.

-Pap. Oh Pap. We screamed at the clouds to hold off all afternoon so we could watch a clean inning from you.....and you pitched just like you did in Game 3 last year. Pap has been effective all Spring, but just didn't have it today. He reportedly had a migraine, was noticeably failing to locate his fastball while working in some breaking stuff. In the end, it didn't matter what he threw, everything got hit, and hit hard. He allowed 6 runs, 5 earned, all while only getting one out. One. For now we're not worried, we'll call it an outlier of a performance.

-Ramon Ramierez and D Bard came in to clean up Pap's trash. Bard pumped fastballs by guys with uniform numbers in the 80's and 90's. It just wasn't a fair fight.

-WHERE IS HEIDI? It's been an amazing trip for ITM thus far, but one major missing piece is the absence of Boston's best asset.....Heidi Watney. With tomorrow being our last day, we'll undoubtedly be searching high and low.

Alright, we're off to the Ft Myers beach area for food and drinks. We'll be at tomorrow's game and will make attempts to post via our b-berries.

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